Per Diem for September 2020: Mental Health/Illness

 Abundance is waking up in the morning with your haiku up on The Haiku Foundation website. Thanks to Susan Burch for selecting my haiku and to Marta Majorka Chociłowska for sharing this poem on Buds of Haiku on Facebook.

First Issue 2017 of The Cherita

     It has been more than 90 days so now I can post these 3 cherita that were published in the first issue of the cherita: your storybook journal.

      If you'd like to read the current issue, Be Amazed, edited by Larry Kimmel, here's the link. http://www.thecherita.com/flipbook.

A Hundred Gourds 4:2

Peace Lily

too late                                               /shloka

to start over . . .

 

even the stems                                  /christine

of my peace lily

have turned brittle

***

this baggage                                     /shloka

i no longer wish

to carry . . .

the last downpour                             /christine

from torrential rains

***

colourless                                         /shloka

i skim through life

like a ripple . . .

could I have loved                            /christine

you differently

***

whisking                                           /shloka

my heart to a standstill . . .

after all these years                         /christine

the well has drawn

empty

***

the echo                                           /shloka

of a faraway bird

reaches me . . .

someday I'll find it                            /christine

in my heart to forgive

 

 

*On the A Hundred Gourds website, the word "differently" on the 15th line was unintentionally omitted. A simple typo that has not been corrected. Here's the link.

 

Celebrating National Haiku Writing Month 2015 (Part 3)

 

 

 

 

February 21 prompt: newlywed

See comments here.

 

 

 

 

 

February 22 prompt: nudge

See comments here.

 

 

 

February 23 prompt: name

See comments here.

 

 

 

February 24 prompt: nag

See comments here.

 

 

 

February 25 prompt: navigate

See comments here.

 

 

 

February 26 prompt: narrow

See comments here.

 

 

 

February 27 prompt: nominate

See comments here.

 

 

 

February 28 prompt: neglect.

See comments here.

 

Brass Bell: A Journal Haiku (July 2014 Issue)

      So glad to be part of the 4th issue of brass bell: a haiku journal! Thank you, Zee Zahava for accepting my haiku. :-)
     Theme for this month is BIRDS. 
  

Inspired by my trip to Bodega Head -

 a sandpiper

     teeters along a log . . .

     my indecision

Bird Chatter

 

 

Multiverses 1:1

Multiverses 1:1

    To read the inaugural issue of Multiverses, click here. Below is one of my works included in the haiga gallery.

Multiverses 1:1

1st International Kukai - 6th place

opening my window

I catch a song

of a sparrow

 

1st International Kukai

Prompt: sparrow

opening my window

I catch a song 

of a sparrow . . .

if only my words could

fill such fragrance

Finally, my very first collaborative tanka with Kathy Uyen Nguyen. :-)

Music of Heaven

 

 

 

Haigaonline (Vol. 12 Issue 2, December 2011)

This may be viewed under "contemporary haiga."

 

     It wasn't something that I was expecting or waiting for. It was something that happened when I actually just wanted to be by myself. A flock of birds suddenly started chirping non-stop. The birds were hopping from one branch to another. It was a beautiful experience! I didn't care what kind of birds they were, nor what color of wings they had. What mattered at that time was that their songs made my heart sing. Like the haiku master Kobayashi Issa, I have also heard the music of heaven. Here is one of Issa's prose translated by Nobuyuki Yuasa.

     It was widedly rumored that certain persons had heard celestial music coming down from heaven around two o'clock in the morning on New Year's Day. And they say it has been heard every eighth night since. Some told me in all seriousness that they actually heard the music at such and such place on such and such a night. Others dismissed it as simply a prank played by the wanton wind. I, for one, was inclined to take the idea seriously, but could neither accept it as completely true or reject it as absolutely impossible. For heaven and earth are filled with strange and mysterious powers, and we have all heard of the dancing maidens, and the "sweet dew" that came from above. It is not possible that courtiers in the halls of heaven may have been rejoicing to see the world at peace and called for music-- and if we could not hear it, is it not probable that it was our sinful natures that prevented us? In any event, I found myself intrigued, and invited a group of friends to come to my humble cottage on the nineteenth day of March. We all listened intently, from early evening on, but we heard nothing until the first sunbeams touched the far end of the eastern sky. Then all at once we heard a voice-- we heard music-- coming from the plum tree near my window.

Only birds

sing the music of heaven

in this world.

 

The Essential Haiku: Versions of Basho, Buson, and Issa  

Edited by Robert Hass